Changes to marriage, the military, and grass-roots victories around employment rights signal meaningful progress for Canada’s 2SLGBTQ community. But, many of these victories leave, indigenous, non-binary, and racialized members of the queer community behind. Despite growing public awareness of the struggles the most marginalized members of the 2SLGBTQ community often face, many remain ill-equipped to create policies and workplaces that support the full spectrum of 2SLGBTQ friends and colleagues.
This Pride, join Canadian Club Toronto on June 22 for an important conversation with Katie Dudtschak (RBC), Andrew Kriegler (IIROC) and David Simmonds (Canada Life) on how business, politics, and civil society can prioritize 2SLGBTQ acceptance for the mainstream queer rights movement, and why it matters, now.
**The livestream for virtual guests will begin at approximately 6:15pm ET & a link will be provided closer to the event date.**
Katherine (Katie) D. Dudtschak
Executive Vice President, Regional Banking Personal & Commercial Banking, RBC
Katherine (Katie) Dudtschak leads RBC’s eight personal and business regions in Canada. This includes more than 20,000 advisors in branches and business centres, and industry-leading specialist teams such as Commercial Banking, Financial Planning, Investment and Retirement Planners and Mortgage Specialists. More than 10,000 of these advisors are also licensed through Royal Mutual Funds Inc.
Katie is responsible for setting and leading the execution of distribution strategies that enable our “digitally-enabled relationship bank” strategy, and deliver outstanding client loyalty and growth. From 2013 to 2019, Katie also had overall leadership responsibility for RBC’s presence in the Caribbean, following her successful repositioning of the region’s personal, business and corporate banking businesses. She has more than 30 years of RBC experience and has held a variety of executive roles across the P&CB network and head office including Strategy, Human Resources, Distribution Strategy, Operations, Group Risk Management and Regional President.
Committed to community leadership, Katie is a member of the United Way Greater Toronto’s Board of Trustees as well as their Campaign Cabinet. She was a past member of their Major Giving Cabinet, as well as past co-chair of RBC’s United Way employee giving campaign. Katie is an Industry Director with the Mutual Fund Dealers Association Board of Directors. In 2021, she also became a member of the Board of Directors for Jack.org, a Canadian charity dedicated to training and empowering young people to revolutionize mental health.
Katie holds an MBA from Ivey Business School, Western University and a Partners, Directors and Senior Officers certificate as well as an Institute-Certified Director (ICD.D) certificate from the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Andrew J. Kriegler
President and CEO, IIROC
Andrew Kriegler has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) since late 2014.
Before coming to IIROC, Andrew served as Deputy Superintendent of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) where he was responsible for the prudential supervision of Canada’s federally regulated financial institutions. He also spent 25 years in the private sector, most recently as Treasurer of CIBC from 2008 to 2012, and earlier as Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer of Moody’s Corporation, parent of the credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, where he had been the Country Managing Director.
Andrew has also worked as a treasury executive and as a securitization and debt capital markets banker and began his career as an analyst and then a trader on a mortgage-backed securities trading desk.
Andrew serves on the Board of Directors of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC). He holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University and a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Economics from Trinity College in the University of Toronto.
David Simmonds
Senior Vice-President, Global Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer, Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life
David Simmonds is Senior Vice-President, Global Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer, Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life and a member of the executive management committee.
David drives the organization global communications strategies, which includes external engagement, investor communications and sustainability efforts.
In addition, David supports the company’s strategy and the development and execution of programs related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), sustainability, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), social impact and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
David joined the organization in April of 2021 as Senior Vice-President, Office of the CEO, Corporate Initiatives. He has deep experience with reputation, brand strategy, financial communications, and corporate affairs across regulatory environments, with advisory experience to senior leaders in a variety of sectors.
David is a member of Western University’s Board of Governors; Director and President of Canadian Club Toronto; a Governor of the Stratford Festival and, an Advisory Board Member at Catalyst Canada. A graduate of Western University, he has completed the executive development program at the Wharton School. In 2015, the Diversity Advancement Network named David one of Canada’s Top 100 Black Canadians.
